We are getting closer and closer to the opening of the 2022 World Cup, which will start in less than a month in Qatar, which has invested a lot of money to make the event happen. How much do you ask? The CNBC network made sure to publish the amounts spent in Qatar on preparations for the World Cup compared to the money spent by the previous hosts.
Before we get to the numbers, it’s important to note that they obviously include the money the countries spent on building the stadiums and everything around. As I remember, in Qatar they worked for many years on the preparations for the event when they built six stadiums from scratch and renovated two more in preparation for the tournament, while in the background they received many criticisms for neglecting the human rights of the workers and reports told of thousands of deaths during the preparation for the tournament.
To the numbers – in Qatar they invested no less than 220 billion dollars in preparations for the World Cup, a huge amount that has not been seen, or even close to it. In Russia 2018, the Russians invested 11.6 billion dollars and in Brazil 2014, the Brazilians spent 15 billion dollars on the preparations. In other words, in Qatar they spent almost 15 times (!) more than in the second most expensive World Cup in history, the one that took place in 2014 and 20 times more than the previous World Cup.
The list continues until 1994: in South Africa in 2010 they invested 3.6 billion dollars, in Germany in 2006 they spent 4.3 billion dollars, in South Korea and Japan in 2002 they spent 7 billion dollars, in France in 1998 they invested 2.3 billion dollars, and in the USA in 1994 they invested half a billion dollars.